This invention relates to an outriggered vehicle, such as a rubber-tired carrier or truck for use as the mounting of a mobile crane, which is capable of crabbing, that is, moving in directions at right angles with the normal travelling direction of the vehicle. The invention also pertains to a fluid circuit for adapting known vehicle outrigger systems for such sideways translation of the vehicle.
In the use of a mobile crane or other construction or industrial vehicles, it often becomes necessary to shift the vehicle sideways into a narrowly confined space on either side of the road. Since such a vehicle is usually not constructed for direct crabwise motion, it must be maneuvered back and forth, in a zigzag fashion, into the limited space, if the space has a sufficient length, in a direction parallel to the road, to permit such zigzag movement of the vehicle. If not, then the vehicle cannot possibly be neatly located in the space.
Self-propelled rubber-tired carriers or trucks for use as mobile crane mountings are usually furnished with extensible outriggers, with or without hydraulic power actuation. As heretofore constructed, all the hydraulically actuated outriggers of such a vehicle have been under the control of a single valve, for simultaneous extension or construction only, so that they have so far served the sole purpose of improving over-the-side stability.